A film about a Clearwater fishing trip gone wrong, based on a Tampa man’s memoir, hits theaters nationwide this winter.
In “Not Without Hope,” Zachary Levi leads the cast as Tampa resident Nick Schuyler—the sole survivor of a 2009 boating accident that took the lives of his three other friends on board, a USF football alum and two NFL players.
After its premiere at Austin Film Festival on Oct. 25, the film hits national theaters Dec. 12 and runs through the end of 2025.
Marshall Cook plays former USF football player Will Bleakley. NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith are played by Quentin Plair and Terrence Terrell.
Josh Duhamel plays Coast Guard Captain Timothy Close, who leads the desperate efforts to bring them home.
The film is adapted from Schuyler’s New York Times best-selling book of the same name.
Producer Richard French told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that although the film covers a harrowing two days that resulted in the loss of his friends, including the world watching the search unfold on the news, “Not Without Hope” is still a story true to its name.
“It’s not the easiest story to tell,” French said in a phone call with CL. “You have to creatively walk a very fine line in the way that you’re treating a very difficult sequence of events.”
While the film covers the circumstances of Bleakley, Cooper and Smith’s deaths, French told CL it was just as important—if not more so—to give depth to their backstories.
“A big part of my goal in making the movie was to give people who see it an idea of who they were and remember them not by how they died, but how they lived,” he said. “And so we set out to try to tell a little bit of that backstory, while also being faithful to the book and talking about the tragic events that took place over those 43 hours.”
Schuyler wasn’t available for interviews, but French said he gave notes on the screenplay and was on set for part of the filming. (Though it’s set in the Tampa Bay area and waters of the Gulf, “Not Without Hope” was filmed entirely in Malta).
“The one shining light in this is that there was someone left to tell the story, and to share the fact that without the support of his friends, he wouldn’t be alive. They were his heroes,” French said.
The film was cast in 2020, but the COVID-10 pandemic halted production, leaving filmmakers to start from scratch years later. But despite changes, French said his mission has been to honor Bleakley, Cooper and Smith.
“If we could not do that, and do that in a way that was respectful and accurate, then we didn’t want the movie to be made,” French said. “So the litmus tests, I guess, will be whether we were successful with that.”
Another film based on Schuyler’s story, “Four Down,” won Best Documentary Feature at St. Pete’s Sunscreen Film Festival, where it premiered in April. “Four Down” is being held for release once “Not Without Hope” finishes its theatrical run, per the announcement.
The trailer was released last month.
UPDATE 10/9/25: This story has been updated to add quotes from French.
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This article appears in Sept. 25 – Oct. 1, 2025.